Spring Split Still Haunts Rainbow7
Rainbow7’s case is so special in the League of Legends betting scene that we have to go over what happened to them since the seasons started. We all were expecting great things from Rainbow7 after they unveiled the acquisition of Baek “Ophelia” Jin-seong, former Gen.G mid laner who had the opportunity to play quite a few LCK games last split and performed well. Let’s remember that Rainbow7 had such an amazing spring split regular season where they went 13-1 that by the time playoffs arrived, they were the favorite team to win it all.
But the consensus changed drastically after they went 0-3 against Estral in the very first round and barely made it to the semifinals after going all the way to the 5th game with Isurus. It doesn’t even matter that they lost to Estral in their semifinals rematch, by that time, all the expectations were crushed. The playoffs R7 was not the same team we saw during the regular season, and that was very disappointing to say the least.
Rainbow7 Might Make Changes Amidst Summer Split
Now before the summer split started, we all had high hopes for them just because Ophelia was such a huge name. But in the first two weeks of the split, it was very clear that Rainbow7 were having problems that went beyond their gameplay. In an interview, Sebastián “Oddie” Niño, Rainbow7’s jungler, said that “communication issues” were the main issue for them. It seemed that those issues were gone by week 3 as they managed to take down Estral, the team considered to be the strongest one in the competition,
In reality, maybe those issues still remain and they just had a good moment last week. On Wednesday, Rainbow7 announced their re-signing of Park “Cepted” Wi-rim, their spring split mid laner. While this might go unnoticed for some, it’s very clear that Rainbow7 is taking action for a plan B in case things keep going south for them. Cepted didn’t surprise anyone, and while he didn’t perform poorly, he wasn’t the reason why R7 dominated the spring split.
Maybe this ends up pressuring Ophelia to perform as expected, or it might end up working the other way. R7 didn’t look atrocious last week, but this roster certainly needs to perform as expected, which is something they haven’t been doing. SoHwan is the only one who has looked as good as we thought he would, the rest of the team seems to be barely putting enough effort in, and if they keep playing like that, it’s very likely that they won’t even make it to the semifinals.
Straight is Not Performing as Expected
While Team Aze is having a lot of issues this summer split, there is one that stands out above the rest. Roberto “Straight” Guallichico has not been performing like we expected him to, but I have my theory on why this is happening. Throughout the spring split, Straight looked very good because we had 0 expectations as he just made the role swap from top lane to support, which is something that we are not used to seeing.
When people saw him perform decently, it was mind blowing, but in reality, his performance was just decent and he was doing what was expected from any support player. That raised the expectations for him a lot, and while that might bring some benefits, it also has a bad side to it. Now that Straight is expected to perform better than the rest of the supports, his true colors are showing and we can see that he is just an average support in the LLA.
In his last game against Isurus, his engages were way off and he looked completely lost. There is one important thing worth mentioning, there are some rumors going on behind the scene, saying that Straight is suffering some health issues, but we cannot determine if that’s the reason for his recent performance. What he shows on the stage is all we can judge, and so far, he is far from being the excellent support we thought he was in the spring split.
Rainbow7 vs Team Aze Game Information
- Date: Saturday, July 9th
- Time: 4:00pm ET
- Rainbow7 vs Team Aze Live Stream: LLA – Twitch
Rainbow7 vs Team Aze Predictions
Now, the main thing to consider is that Rainbow7 is struggling so much even against weaker teams, and the fact that they re-signed Cepted is not a good sign from them. While Team Aze is having their own issues, they seem to be improving steadily week after week.
We have already talked about the “MSI hangover” and how many teams are affected by it, and clearly Team Aze is one of those teams. Dimitry mentioned in one of his interviews how they are working all the way up from the basics, and they don’t intend on being as good as they were in the spring split, but better.
I think that Team Aze is going to start climbing up the standings around this time, and this game against a shaky Rainbow7 is going to be a perfect opportunity for them to do so, even if the lol odds project otherwise.
PICK: Team Aze to win at +119
